Is a Gradate of Northwestern University in 1911
Can We Know from Experience?
Can We Know from Experience?
THE ARGUMENTS against eternal security and for the contention that one who has been saved can be lost fall into two broad groups: (1) those based on human observations and reason and (2) those based on scripture passages interpreted in order to make them so teach. In some arguments both of these errors are intermingled.
Those based on human observations and reasoning shall be considered first. In fact, inasmuch as the subject being considered is one that can be known only through what God has revealed to us, all arguments or parts of arguments that are purely on a human level must be ruled out. No evidence can be recognized as such that is not based on God's own revelation. It is good, however, because of the wide acceptance of some of the arguments that are purely human, to show how these arguments deny and contradict God's own word.
No attempt is made here to deal with all arguments that have been offered against eternal security. Space will not permit nor is it necessary; as the case rests not on refutation of human arguments, but on the positive revelation of God as it is found in the doctrines of grace. What follows is offered to show that the arguments against eternal security are untenable, and to help some who are bothered by these arguments.
A very familiar argument of this type is: "We know from our own experience of people who have been saved, but later have been lost." Instances are also cited of men who have at one time preached the gospel, but have later denied God. The human observation and conclusion drawn from it, supporting this argument, may both be incorrect, for man is far from infallible, but that isn't the most serious objection to the argument. Anyone who definitely makes the statement about someone, that he has been saved and is now lost, is making a double judgment where he puts himself in the position of God. This is a serious charge, but it can be sustained by scripture. Anyone who is saved, is saved through faith, that is, believing. "Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life" (John 5:24). Believing is a heart attitude toward God. "It is with your heart that you believe and are justified" (Romans 10:10).
What does God say about the judgment of a heart attitude toward himself? "The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). Thus God specifically says that man cannot judge as to whether or not a man is in his heart, right with God. Christians ought to recognize others as Christians, or refuse to recognize them as such in fellowshipping with them (First Corinthians 5:11 and Second Thessalonians 3:6, 14, 15); but this is quite different from making a positive statement that men are saved or not. Thus no man can definitely declare of another that he is either saved or lost.
God has caused to be written down in his word, the lives of two men, and has also given his own judgment as to whether these men were saved or lost. In both cases God's judgment is opposite to man's, based upon experience.
A favorite sermon subject of a few years ago was, "Lot Pitched His Tent Toward Sodom." Invariably it was said that, as a result of this first move toward Sodom, Lot became a lost man. This surely is the only conclusion that can be drawn from judging the experience or the "outward being" of Lot, but those who preached this entirely overlooked God's testimony concerning Lot, recorded some two thousand years after Lot died. It is found in Second Peter 2:7, 8. "He rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)." Man, judging the outward being of Lot, says he was lost. God, judging his soul, which in scripture is nearly synonymous with heart, calls him righteous.
Who is right, God or man? No modern case quoted as proof against eternal security has looked more hopeless than Lot. Yet men who are teachers of God's word say, "We know from our own experience that persons who have been saved can be lost."
Let no-one condemn this reference to the life of Lot nor say that it should not be mentioned, as it encourages sinful living. The fact that God has had it recorded in his word is authority for its use. When properly understood, the life of Lot becomes a tremendous warning, in the most concrete terms possible, of what it means to be "saved, but only as one escaping through the flames" (First Corinthians 3:15). This warning is entirely lost when it is used to warn saved people of the supposed possibility of their being lost. Lot's life is placed in contrast to that of Abraham. To both, righteousness was imputed, unrelated to works. Surely no Christian would choose the life of Lot with its barrenness and ultimate loss of everything except life itself, when it is possible to have a life like that of Abraham to whom God revealed his purposes and who was called the friend of God.
The other person in God's record is one whom man's judgment calls saved, but God said that he was lost. It is Judas Iscariot. Judas is the ever present proof to many for the possibility of being saved and later lost. Read his life. He was counted as one of the twelve earthly disciples of Jesus. He was so trusted by the others that he was made their treasurer. He was with the twelve when they were sent out to preach the gospel of the Kingdom. There is not the slightest record of any of the other eleven mistrusting him. He was included in the "we" when Peter said, "We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God" (John 6:69). Surely from experience, Peter and the other disciples thought they knew that Judas was saved.
But when Peter made that great confession of faith in Christ, which is in itself the very basis for being saved (John 3:36), and included in it Judas, Jesus immediately challenged it by saying, "One of you is a devil." What made this difference in judgment? Peter knew only the outward being of Judas - Jesus Christ knew his heart.
Again, after Jesus had washed the disciples' feet, he was very careful when he said, "‘you are clean'" to add, "'though not every one of you.' For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean" (John 13:10, 11). Jesus had washed the feet of Judas as well as the others. Therefore, the difference between Judas and the others was that he had not 'had a bath' (verse 10); hence he was not clean. This is the washing (the same root word as is used for bathed in John 13:10) of regeneration (Titus 3:5) by which Judas had not been cleansed. As this bath is a "once for all" cleansing (Hebrews 10:1-12), Judas had never been saved, according to the record of the scripture.
In the days of the early Church, there were those among the true believers who went out from among them. Of them it is written: "They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us" (First John 2:19). As the very purpose of their going out was to show that they were not of the saved, it is clear that they had been fully recognized as saved.
Finally then, the one who says, "We know from our own experience that there are those who have been saved but are lost," places his own observations and judgment above God's statements to the contrary. But that is not all, he allows his own limited human observations and judgments to deny what God teaches in all the doctrines of the grace of God, which, it has been shown, demand the eternal security of the believer for their full understanding and acceptance. It is placing fallible and finite judgments and reasoning of man above God's infinite and infallible word.
You have read a chapter from the book _"SHALL NEVER PERISH" by J. F. Strombeck you can read the entire book at,
Shall Never Perish - By J. F. Strombeck
Grace Bible Church (Click Here)
(A 10 Minute Video)
How
God Saves Men
Believing
Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.
Believing
Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.
Read
Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4
(A 10 Minute Video)
E-mail
this BIBLE STUDY to all your friends
No comments:
Post a Comment